Toronto Sun's Eric Margolis Opens Mouth, Removes All Doubt

By ANN Senior Correspondent Kevin "Hognose" O'Brien

Part Two              Read Part One

Hello, and welcome back to our examination of Eric Margolis's March 20th Column for the Toronto Sun, "A-300s, 310s likely flawed." (See the link to the first part, which ran yesterday). For those of you who are now back with us, remember that we stopped in the midst of a discussion of Margolis's claim that "[i]t's now clear the 300-series tails might have defects, perhaps along their hinge joints." He's referring to the recent Air Transat accident in which the pilots regained the field after the rudder departed, and the 2001 American Airlines Flight 587 accident where the entire vertical stab separated inflight.

The two tail failures, one from overstress (AA 587) and one still unknown, were a 300-600 and a 310 respectively. Since the parts failed in completely different places, the fact that they were both the same general design of composite tail is probably not material (no pun intended) to the investigation. I would be thrilled to have Eric Margolis explain how the failure of 587s attachment lugs originated in the "hinge joints," particularly when that failure happened:

1. exactly where a test part had failed in certification testing, at almost exactly the same load (over double the certified lateral gust limit load).

2. exactly where computer analysis (finite element analysis, FEA, and progressive failure analysis, PFA) said it would fail

3. In the exact manner predicted by FEA and PFA

4. Identically in post-accident testing of test articles in the lab, and...

5. Nowhere near the hinge joints.

The photo, from NTSB's detailed report on 587, shows the initial point of failure of 587's vertical stabilizer, the right rear main attachment fitting. The graphic shows similar results from eight test programs.

What does Margolis say about 587?

"In Nov., 2001, the tail of American Airlines flight 587...disintegrated... killing all 260 aboard. Investigators blamed pilot error, turbulence, and the plane. It now seems more likely the culprit was delamination of the A-300 tail."

Once again, Margolis reaches his conclusion by fabricating facts. Disintegrated, huh? I quote from the NTSB: "The vertical stabilizer was mostly intact.  The left and right skin panels did not exhibit any significant damage, but the six main attachment fittings and the three pairs of transverse load fittings were fractured." And delamination? The attachment and load fittings did not "delaminate," they "fractured." Words mean things, which is something a columnist needs to know. If you're going to use highfalutin technical terms to fluff your expertise, you ought to use the right ones. (At the micro level there were delaminations in the broken lugs as well as translaminar fractures).

"Since then, I have refused to fly A-300 or A-310's, about 800 of which remain in service."

All the more reason to ride an A-310 -- you won't run into this clown. If these planes were somehow prone to shed tails, how how did they ever manage to launch 800 of them and fly them for years before it happened? Well, we now turn from Eric's jumping the shark, to his dislike for flying over schools of them.

"Airlines and manufacturers insist engine technology is so advanced that long over-water flights are safe. I disagree."

Yeah, that Lindbergh is never going to get to Paris. Oh... wait.... In all seriousness, it's kind of hard to find examples of all-engines-flameout recently. Thank God for Canada! There have also been at least two incidents of 747s FODding all four with volcanic ash, which led to new procedures to keep clear of volcanic ash. But hey, Margolis can disagree with airlines and manufacturers. It's a free country. He doesn't have to fly anything if he wants "100% safety" -- he can always ride the bus or take a ship when he has to cross the sea.

"On March 17, 2003, a United 777... lost an engine over the mid-Pacific and had to limp for three hours....If a problem had developed with the over-stressed second engine, disaster would have ensued," wrote Margolis (below, right).

OK, so let me get this straight. If a Canadian crew is over the Atlantic in a twin engine plane with none running, that's an "aeronautical miracle." United's American crew is over the Atlantic with one running, that's a potential "disaster." I guess consistency is not the hobgoblin of at least one simple mind. Ah, let's move on.

"According to Aviation Week, Boeing's 777s have had 16 in-flight shutdowns since May, 1995. Airlines insist the aircraft, which have flown 2.3 million miles, are safe even on a single engine.... I'd rather pay more and know there is backup when I'm flying at 39,000 feet in pitch blackness over the icy North Pacific."

How do you define safe? In that same period, there has been exactly one fatality connected with a Boeing 777 -- a ground service refueler who died in September, 2001, when a broken refueling coupling on his fuel truck's hose doused him with flaming fuel while he was tanking a British Airways 777 in Denver. Which is a pretty tenuous connection with the 777 indeed. All those 16 in-flight shutdowns ended safely for all aboard, but you don't learn that from Margolis. As far as "I'd rather pay more," that's brave talk from expense-account boy. And "know there is backup" -- why on earth does he think twin-engine planes have two engines? Because two was Donald Douglas's lucky number?

By the way, adding engines increases the overall probability of engine trouble and in-flight shutdowns. I hate to utter something so tautologically self-evident, but Eric isn't the only one who doesn't get it.

"Two pilots and a flight engineer are always better than a two-man crew.... The 1998 crash of a burning Swissair MD-11 off Nova Scotia, and the 1995 crash of an American 757 in Colombia might have been averted had there been a flight engineer to help the confused pilots."

Actually, human performance studies have found, counterintuitively, that Cockpit Resource Management works better in a two-person crew than in three. One theory, which is raised in Jay Hopkins's column in April's Flying magazine, is that with a third person present, there is always someone listening, and so people are less forthcoming and forthright that they are when it's one-on-one. As far as the specific incidents he cites, I defy him to tell us what a FE could have done in either of those cases.

The American crash on approach to Cali was a navigational error -- maybe if we went back to the early fifties and added a nav to the crew, not an FE, but history tells us that there was controlled flight into terrain even then. The Swissair flight did not have time from the discovery of fire inflight to crew incapacitation to set down, period. Jesus Christ Himself couldn't have saved their lives if you added Him to the flight crew.

"Government regulators, not airlines and cost-saving, should determine safety."

Oh, yeah, the government never gets safety wrong. People who work for the government are automatically imbued with all good human properties. Including infallibility. Anyone who believes this needs to start wearing a shuttle O-ring around his neck as a reminder. And does he think that airlines are unregulated? I bet the FAA and its foreign counterparts kill more trees yearly than the Toronto Sun. Like everyone in the industry, I'm on the receiving end of a lot of this paper blizzard. Government and industry have to be partners in safety, but some entities have opposite motivations: for the mainstream press, or the trial bar, accidents and fatalities are positive things: they put food on the table.

The howlers in the column just keep coming. He bags on airlines in general but praises Pakistan International. Yeah, they'll get you to your destination -- insha'allah.

Margolis joins the growing cohort of major-media mythmakers, like CBS's Bob "Chicken Little" Orr, who need never fear judicial execution in America, thanks to their room-temperature IQs (US courts have ruled it is cruel to execute the retarded). At least, if we judge them by their aviation reporting. The irony is that airline travel has never been safer, while at the same time columnistic cowards have the public quivering in unjustifiable fear.

Let's give Eric one last chance to redeem himself: "For full disclosure, I was hijacked aboard a Lufthansa A-310 in 1993. This event did not influence my judgment of the aircraft."

Oy. What a model of logic and probity. All I can say is this: when the phone doesn't ring, Eric, that's Transport Canada, the NTSB, Boeing, the airlines and the pilots' unions not calling for your advice.

FMI: www.torontosun.com